Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, SUPREME COURT DOCKET—Court sets hearing date for FTC termination showdown, grants cert to another Flower Foods arbitration dispute, (Oct 20, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

Arguments in Trump v. Slaughter will be held on December 8, 2025.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced the cases that will be heard in the beginning of the December session, which will includeTrump v. Slaughter. In that case, the Trump administration is asking the Court to overrule longstanding precedent, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, and to determine that the statutory removal protections for FTC members violate the separation of powers. It also asks the Court to determine whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office.

Flower Foods. Additionally, today the Court granted certiorari on another Flower Foods arbitration dispute. In 2024, the High Court ruled that a transportation worker need not work for a company that is in the transportation industry to be exempt from the coverage of Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act, finding that the Second Circuit erred in compelling arbitration of wage claims brought by bakery delivery drivers on the basis that they work in the bakery industry.

Now, it is being asked whether workers who deliver locally goods that travel in interstate commerce but who do not transport the goods across borders nor interact with vehicles that cross borders are “transportation workers” “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” for purposes of the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 exemption. Below, the Tenth Circuit held that the company was not entitled to compel arbitration of putative class and collective FLSA claims alleging that the employer misclassifies its delivery-driver distributors as independent contractors to systematically underpay them. The Tenth Circuit affirmed that the FAA’s Section 1 interstate commerce exemption applied.

The docket is No. 24-935.

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